In-vitro Flowering and in-vivo Sex Expression of Micropropagated Parthenocarpic Gynoecious Cucumber

Abstract

A micropropagation protocol for parthenocarpic gynoecious cucumber reduces the burden of producing the seeds for each generation and their maintenance in-vivo. Thus an experiment was conducted in order to regenerate the plants in-vitro to check their performance after micropropagation. The micropropagation resulted in maximum shoot initiation (100%) from seedling excised cotyledonary explants with half strength MS medium supplemented with 0.5 mg/l IAA and 2 mg/l BAP along with half strength MS medium supplemented with 0.25 mg/l IAA for rooting and from stem nodal explants with Full MS + 1.5 mg/l IAA + 2 mg/l BAP media whereas half strength MS media without any hormones resulted in rooting and in both cases there were in-vitro flowers and change in their sex expression while grown in in-vivo conditions. On an average 61.11 and 48.15 percent survival was recorded from the plants regenerated through cotyledonary explants and stem nodal explants respectively. Out of five survived plants from regenerated parthenocarpic genotype CS 131 three showed monoecious sex expression and two exhibited gynoecious (parthenocarpic) sex expression. Mixed response of sex expression was evident in the regenerated parthenocarpic and gynoecious genotypes.